My Little Victory Garden

My Little Victory Garden: Jam Therapy

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Three times my friend communicated that “the blackberries are ready,” and to “meet me at Wellston…we’ll drive down together to pick them.”

But the first time they weren’t really ready. Then the heat was too extreme. Then it rained. And then I think my friend might have gotten tired of trying, and we dropped that plan.

I had already let the thought of those precious blackberries fade from my mind when I drove by my favorite sand plum thicket and spotted the color of ripeness.  I picked a few, took them home to show Mick, and within a few hours we were headed back to strip the thicket and head to the kitchen.

In spite of the lingering effects of chigger bites I suffered the next week, making that jam was a beautiful thing.  You see, I’ve been writing and coding and building tables for my dissertation.  And jam therapy seems to be the best thing to clear my head this summer.

I’ve cleared my head six more times since then…

Mick’s friend called and reported that his “daughter’s pasture had wild blackberries, and would we like to come pick some?” Our answer was, “Yes!”

Our arms were scratched, I picked up a piece of wire in the pasture that made a horrible screeching noise against my brakes, and it was so hot our clothes were soaked when we finished.  But we got about 6 or 7 pounds of blackberries and my second “jam session” was once again a beautiful thing.

Then I called my friend Cathy because she had planned on going for the original blackberry run that never happened and I wanted to chat with her while picking fruit.  I knew my contact down in Blanchard had grapes and that it was time for them to be turning.  So after she answered, I said, “Hey, wanna go pick grapes with me?”  And she responded, “Yee-haw” or “Yippee-Skippy” or something like that.

So the two of us packed our containers, do-rags, rubber boots, bug spray and more equipment than we probably needed and headed to the vineyard.  We picked Mars, Vanessa, Jupiter, and one other variety.  And then, we took her 14# bag and my 10# bag up to the shed to pay for them.  The farmer weighed Cathy’s bag and said, “Okay, that’s 14 times 6…uh, that’s…”

I looked at Cathy’s face.  Her eyes were blinking as she tried to register the fact that he actually WAS charging us $6 per pound for the grapes.  She was stuttering, so I decided to help.  “That’s $84, I’m pretty sure.”

In my head I was screaming, “EIGHT-FOUR DOLLARS???  WHAT-DO-YOU-THINK YOU’RE DOING?  THIS IS HIGHWAY ROBBERY!!”

After we paid for the grapes, I took my $60 bag and Cathy took her $84 dollar bag and we walked to the car.  Then we opened the doors and gently laid the grapes in the back seat.  Then we closed the doors and checked through the windows to make sure the grapes were okay.  Then we got in the front seat.  Then we closed the front doors, buckled our seatbelts, and exploded with, “What the??…”  “I KNOW, right?”

Then we took our solid gold, no – PLATINUM grapes home and went our separate ways.

Later I got a text from Cathy.  “Drinking fresh Jupiter grape juice – Oh. My. Larry….this stuff is good.”

Then I juiced all mine, cooked them down with a rosemary bouquet and turned it into Rosemary Grape jam.  Another therapy session.  And, it’s probably my favorite of all I’ve made this summer. Cripes, maybe they were worth the six bucks a pound…who knows? After all, I charge $125 per session when I provide psychtherapy…maybe $6 was actually a bargain, eh?

Then Mick and I drove to Stratford and got peaches, and I made jam.  TWO therapy sessions today:  jalapeño and cherry bomb pepper peach jam, and spiced peach jam with bourbon and crystalized ginger.  Each time I scrape the very last bits from my large stock pot I close my eyes and think, “Okay – I can do another table.  I can write another few pages….I can do this.”

I was in WalMart one day and saw $3 bags of apricots.  I bought five of them and made apricot jam.  And felt better when they were done.

I invited two friends over who wanted to learn how to can.  I had jam therapy vicariously through Rose’s first pickles and Katie’s first peach jam.  When the day was over, we were all a little worn out but I was calm and peaceful as a cucumber.

My daughter and my husband have dispatched the location of two loaded crabapple trees that I’ll probably harvest this weekend or next.  I haven’t even built my last two statistical tables or my final model but I KNOW I’ll need crabapple jam therapy to get me through.

Blackberries, peaches, grapes, apricots…all procured by hand in one way or another.  All cleaned, prepared, cooked and put up into half pints or pints, each pinging with a beautiful seal when it’s over.

I can’t wait to climb the crabapple trees.  I can’t wait to smell that beautiful tart-apple-ly aroma, or see the lovely pink sunset color when the jam is packed into the sparkling jars.  I can’t wait to feel relaxed and worn out after I complete my (most likely) 60th half-pint of jam this summer.

Why?  Because I know that between each therapy session in my kitchen, is a pile of pages stacking…and stacking…and stacking up in my master dissertation document.  I think on my defense day, I’ll take my committee jam.

After all, that’s only appropriate, right?

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Favorite Things, Oklahoma culture

The Wheaties Are Coming!

THE WHEATIES ARE COMING!

THE WHEATIES ARE COMING!!

The last week of May signals the beginning of wheat harvest in Southwestern Oklahoma and northern Texas. A sea of golden wheat waves across the plains igniting the annual migration of the custom wheat harvest crews to the area. Common nicknames for the harvest crews are “Wheaties” or “Wheat whackers”.   The crews will spend the summer months harvesting wheat from northern Texas all the way to the border of North Dakota and Canada and beyond.

A typical crew will consist of the owner, their family, and a group of hired hands that travel with them from one wheat field to the next. The owner carries the financial burden of owning the combines, trucks, travel trailers, and assorted other equipment to make the annual harvest migration. The owner’s wife makes sure the family and crew is fed and tended to as needed. The workers run and maintain the equipment, and assist in moving it from one farm to the next. A typical owner nearly always has a farm at his/her home base that extended family members will manage during the wheat harvest season.

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Tommy and David checking on the 2013 wheat crop

The third part of the harvest equation is the local farmer growing the wheat. The farmer will often use the same crew each year. More often than not, the “harvest contract” is a good, old-fashioned handshake agreement.   Once the arrangements are in place, the waiting and praying begins.

The crews work efficiently over long hours every day, but weather, dew, and equipment failures will interrupt the harvest schedule. The farmers and custom harvest crews alike pray the hail will stay away and the fields and grain will be sufficiently dry for cutting. Once the crew finishes one farmer’s acreage, they move on to the next farmer.

Some non-Oklahomans have often wondered why OK-TX wheat farmers don’t buy their own combines. The answer boils down to economics. Combines – the machine used to harvest the wheat (think “Frank” from the movie Cars) cost around $400,000.00 new, before you add on the wheat cutting head. Some models can be equipped to accommodate inter-changeable heads, meaning they can harvest wheat, corn, soybeans, etc. Since most wheat farmers in Western Oklahoma don’t grow the other crops, it only makes $ense to hire a custom cutting crew to harvest the wheat. Food for thought:  Next time your daughter wants to rent a limo for the prom or her wedding, let her hire a tractor, cotton stripper, or combine instead – they are worth a lot more than a limousine, and you might just make a farmer’s day!

Wheat harvest time is not all work and no play. Along with the unexpected weather delays, most crew members, affectionately known as “Wheaties” or “Wheat-whackers” to the locals, get an evening or two off now and then to head into the nearby towns. The average Wheatie is in his late teens to early 20s, earning money for college or other interests. When the wheaties come to town, the young ladies of the area check them out. Romances blossom and fade during the two or three weeks the crews are in town. The local guys turn a bit green with envy during this time, but the ones in the know realize, “This, too, shall pass.”

And just like that, the wheat harvest is over for this year. The Wheaties pack up and roll on down the road to harvest the next plot full of waving wheat, golden ripe and ready.

Thank you for joining me once again on the Red Dirt Roads bordering the wheat fields of Southwestern Oklahoma.  Join me next time for a couple of book reviews.

Always in Red Dirt,

Southwest Sara

For a quick video look at a wheat harvest in progress in the Frederick area, watch this YouTube video.

Combine pricing can be found here:
https://configurator.deere.com/

http://caseih.ironbuilder.com/Series/Harvesting.aspx
Sources: Tommy Sadler, Dave and Tawna Shultz, Tom Boyer, Neil Johnson, Warren Crawford and personal experiences.

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Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: NASA Space Day

I believe at some point in everyone’s life, a person stops and thinks about space, the infinite frontier. What else is out there? What is it like to be in zero gravity? There are so many questions that have been answered and so many that are still being researched.

With efforts to use the excitement of space exploration to get students interested in and involved with science, technology, engineering and mathematics, NASA has made a national effort to reach out to as many schools as they can and give students a hands on look at what working with them is like.

In this week’s video blog, we take a look at what leaders in Oklahoma are doing to help promote and educate people about the importance of STEM education.
Kela Kelln

On the Horizon: Space Day from Alisa Hines on Vimeo.

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Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: It’s Hard and That’s a Good Thing

On a recent trip to Southeast Oklahoma, I met a group of students who really impressed me. They were all valedictorians at their home schools and taking a pre-engineering course at Kiamichi Tech Center in Idabel.

Now a lot of people think that going to a tech center means you aren’t planning on going to college, but that just isn’t the case. Many students are taking courses at local tech centers to prepare them to go to college. In the pre-engineering course, the instructor talked about how he had a student who had gone through his class and then went to college only to find out that one of the books they had used while in high school, was the same book that was being used in his college class. The only difference…when he went through it at the tech center, they went ALL the way through the book and at college they only did a portion of it. So he actually got more academic training at Kiamichi Tech than he did in his college class.

When I asked each of the students why they took the pre-engineering class at Kiamichi Tech, every single one of them said, “Because it’s more challenging.” They were wanting an education that challenged them and the basic high school classes just weren’t enough. There was even one student who before taking the class was very introverted and wouldn’t talk to anyone and just kept to himself. But after going through the pre-engineering class, he became very outgoing and animated when talking about what he was learning. I guess his classmates were more on his level and could understand him. It’s really nice to see high school students excited about learning.

In this week’s video blog, meet the students from Kiamichi Tech Center’s pre-engineering class and see what makes these kids want to learn more.
Alisa Hines

On the Horizon: It’s Hard and That’s a Good Thing! from Alisa Hines on Vimeo.

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Oklahoma culture

Love Stories with Oklahoma Roots: Charles and Audry Coward

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In honor of D Day, I’m re-running this post about a WWII vet who met his sweetheart in an Arkansas diner. – RDK

I sat in the “family section” at my great-uncle Charlie’s funeral listening to the minister narrate his life story.  Long-time members and family friends filled the pews to extend their regards and say their last goodbyes.  Uncle Charlie’s history about his veteran status in World War II, his commendations and a letter from his commanding officer were detailed.  He had served on several islands, and was on Midway when the Japanese attempted a takeover.  Evidently, two islands made up “Midway,” and Charles was on the Sand Island portion when some pretty heavy action took place.  He was also stationed on Russell Island which was bombed so frequently Charles got conditioned to the warning sirens and sometimes slept right through all the noise and chaos.

I hadn’t known about the honor, valor and courage my Uncle had shown during WWII.  I quietly listened while trying to soak in the details, but some of the language of the various battles and specific missions were foreign to me.  I was mentally making a note on “books covering WWII to read when I finished school,” when a love story began to unfold from the pulpit.  My ears perked up as the minister began sharing anecdotes about how Uncle Charlie and my Aunt Audry met.  I grinned…my Uncle was a schemer!  A few weeks after I returned home, I wrote his daughter and ask for permission to share the story of how they met. My cousin not only granted permission, she sent me a few photos.  Cue a small-town Fayetteville, Arkansas scene. The year was 1950…. Continue reading Love Stories with Oklahoma Roots: Charles and Audry Coward →

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Showcasing Red Dirt culture ~ authored and managed by contributors with connections to the great state of Oklahoma.